Chapter 1: When It's Dark, Don't Go Out

Chapter 1: When It's Dark, Don't Go Out

When it's dark, don't go out.
This saying had been passed down in Canlao Village for many years. Exactly when it originated was impossible to trace. But it was the truth—no doubt about it.

Granny Si of Canlao Village watched the setting sun slowly hide behind the mountains, her heart growing tense again. As the sun dipped below the horizon and the last ray of light vanished, the world between heaven and earth suddenly fell into utter silence—not a single sound. Darkness crept slowly from the west, swallowing mountains, rivers, roads, and trees along the way, until it reached Canlao Village and drowned it whole.

At the four corners of Canlao Village stood four ancient stone statues, mottled and weathered with age. Even Granny Si didn't know who had carved them or when they had been erected here.

When darkness fell, the four statues emitted a faint, ghostly glow. The statues remained lit, allowing Granny Si and the village elders to breathe a sigh of relief.

The darkness beyond the village grew ever thicker, but with the light of the statues, Canlao Village was still relatively safe.

Suddenly, Granny Si's ears twitched. She froze for a moment, then exclaimed in shock: "Listen! There's a baby crying outside!"

Old Man Ma beside her shook his head: "Impossible, you must have misheard... Eh? There really is an infant's cry!"

From the darkness outside the village came the sound of a baby crying. All the other elderly villagers who weren't deaf heard it too. The old folks exchanged bewildered glances—Canlao Village was remote and desolate. How could a baby appear nearby?

"I'll go take a look!"

Granny Si grew agitated and hurried on her bound feet to one of the stone statues at the village edge. Old Man Ma rushed after her: "Granny Si, are you crazy? It's dark! Leave the village and you're dead!"

"I'll carry this statue out of the village! The things in the dark fear the statues—I won't die for a while yet!"

Granny Si bent down, trying to hoist the statue onto her back, but she was hunchbacked and couldn't lift it. Old Man Ma shook his head: "Let me do it. I'll carry the statue and go with you!"

Another elder limped over on a crippled leg, saying: "Old Man Ma, you only have one arm. You won't last long carrying that statue. I have both hands—let me carry it."

Old Man Ma glared at him: "Damn cripple, you've lost a leg. Can you even walk? I may only have one arm, but this arm is incredibly strong!"

He lifted the statue with his single arm, steadying himself. The statue was unimaginably heavy: "Granny Si, let's go!"

"Don't call me an old hag! Cripple, Mute—all of you be careful! The village has lost one statue—don't let anything from the dark sneak in!"

...

Old Man Ma and Granny Si walked out of Canlao Village. Strange things in the darkness circled around the two of them, but when struck by the statue's light, they squealed and retreated back into the shadows.

The two followed the sound of crying, walking a hundred or so steps until they reached a great river. The baby's cry came from the riverbank. The statue emitted its faint glow, but it didn't reach far. The two listened carefully to pinpoint the direction, then walked upstream along the river. After a few dozen steps, the crying was right nearby. Old Man Ma's single arm could barely hold out. Granny Si's eyes brightened—she spotted a tiny glimmer of light. It was a basket resting at the river's edge. The light came from the basket, and so did the crying.

"There really is a child!"

Granny Si stepped forward and lifted the basket, but paused—she couldn't lift it. Beneath the basket was an arm, pale and bloated from being soaked in the river water. It was this arm that had held the basket and the child within it aloft, carrying them all the way to the shore.

"Don't worry, the child is safe now." Granny Si said softly to the woman beneath the water.

The female corpse seemed to hear her words. The hand released its grip, and the body was swept away by the river current, vanishing into the darkness.

Granny Si lifted the basket. Inside was a swaddled infant, and on top of the swaddling clothes lay a jade pendant, glowing with a faint light. The pendant's glow was very similar to the statues' light, but much weaker. It was this jade pendant that had protected the child in the basket from the things in the darkness.

But the pendant's light was weak—it could only protect the child, not the woman.

"It's a boy."

Back at Canlao Village, the villagers all gathered around—all of them old, weak, sick, or disabled. Granny Si lifted the swaddling cloth and peeked inside, then grinned with her few remaining crooked teeth: "Our Canlao Village finally has a whole, healthy person!"

The Cripple, who had only one leg, said in surprise: "Granny Si, you plan to raise him? We can barely support ourselves! I think we should send him away..."

Granny Si flew into a rage: "I found this child with my own skills! Why should I give him away?"

The villagers all stammered and dared not argue with her. The Village Chief arrived on a stretcher. He was worse off than the others—at least the rest had limbs, just fewer than normal, but he had no arms and no legs at all. Yet everyone respected him greatly. Even the fierce and terrifying Granny Si dared not act rashly around him.

"Since we're going to raise him, shouldn't we give him a name?"

The Village Chief said: "Old woman, is there anything else in the basket?"

Granny Si rummaged through it, then shook her head: "Only this jade pendant. No notes or anything else. There are characters on the pendant—it's the character 'Qin.' This pendant has no impurities, and there's a strange power inside it. It's no ordinary item—it must come from a wealthy family, right?"

"Is his name Qin, or is his surname Qin?"

The Village Chief pondered, then said: "Let his surname be Qin. His given name will be Mu—Qin Mu. When he grows up, we'll have him tend livestock. At least he can make a living that way."

"Qin Mu." Granny Si looked at the infant in the swaddling clothes. The baby wasn't afraid of her at all—it actually babbled and laughed.

...

By the river, the sound of a flute drifted through the air. A young cowherd sat on the back of a mother cow, playing a flute, its notes crisp and melodious. The cowherd was eleven or twelve years old, with delicate, handsome features—bright eyes, red lips, and white teeth. His clothes hung half open, and a jade pendant hung from his chest.

This youth was the infant Granny Si had found by the river eleven years ago. Over the years, the village elders had raised the child with great hardship. Granny Si had somehow acquired a mother cow, letting the infant Qin Mu drink cow's milk every day, helping him survive the fragile period when children often died young.

Although the villagers of Canlao Village all looked fierce and menacing, they were all very kind to him. Granny Si was a seamstress, and Qin Mu usually learned tailoring from her. He learned herb gathering and medicine refining from the Apothecary, leg techniques from Grandpa Cripple, sound recognition and positioning from Grandpa Blind, and breathing exercises from the armless and legless Village Chief. The days passed quickly.

The mother cow was his childhood wet nurse. Granny Si had originally planned to sell it, but Qin Mu couldn't bear to part with it, so the task of tending the cow was given to him.

He often tended the cow by the river. The green mountains were like ink paintings, with blue waves and white clouds—it was quite pleasant.

"Qin Mu! Qin Mu! Save me!"

Suddenly, the mother cow beneath him spoke. Qin Mu was startled and quickly jumped off the cow's back. He saw tears in the cow's eyes as it spoke in human language: "Qin Mu, you grew up drinking my milk. I'm like a mother to you. You have to save me!"

Qin Mu blinked and tested: "How can I save you?"

The cow said: "You have a sickle at your waist. Skin me, and you'll free me from my predicament."

Qin Mu hesitated. The cow said: "Have you forgotten the kindness of my nursing?"

Qin Mu raised the sickle and carefully cut through the cowhide. Strange to say, when the hide was peeled back, not a single drop of blood flowed out. Moreover, the inside of the cowhide was empty—no flesh, no blood, no bones.

When the hide was about half peeled, a woman in her twenties or thirties rolled out from inside. Her two legs were still wrapped in the cow's hind legs, her flesh connected to the cowhide, but her upper body had already come free from the hide.

The woman, hair disheveled, snatched the sickle from the stunned Qin Mu's hand, cut through the cowhide on her legs with two or three strokes, then looked at Qin Mu. Malice rose in her heart. She pressed the sickle against Qin Mu's neck and sneered coldly: "You little villain! Because of you, I was turned into a cow! For eleven years I could only eat grass, and I had to feed you milk! How pitiful—I had just given birth to my child before I was turned into a cow, and then that witch schemed against me, transforming me into a cow to nurse you! Today I've finally escaped. I'll kill you first, then slaughter all the villains in this village!"

Qin Mu's mind went blank. He had no idea what this woman who had crawled out of the cowhide was talking about.

The woman was about to cut him down with the sickle when suddenly her heart went cold. She looked down and saw a blade protruding from her chest.

"Mu'er, your Grandpa Apothecary wants you to come back and take your medicine." The woman's body fell. Behind her stood Grandpa Cripple from the village—kind-eyed, with a simple, honest face, holding a bloody blade in his hand, smiling at Qin Mu.

"Grandpa Cripple..." Qin Mu's body went weak. He looked at the cowhide on the ground and the woman's corpse, still not fully processing what had happened.

"Go back, go back." The Cripple patted his shoulder and chuckled.

Qin Mu walked unsteadily back toward the village, one foot higher than the other. He looked back and saw the Cripple tossing the woman's body into the river.

The shock of this scene was too great—he didn't even know when he had returned to the village.

"Qin Mu! You little brat! How many times have I told you? When it's dark, don't go out!"

Night had fallen, and the stone statues at the four corners of Canlao Village had automatically lit up again. Granny Si called out to Qin Mu, who was about to sneak out of the village to check the cowhide by the river, and dragged him back.

"Granny, why can't I go out when it's dark?" Qin Mu looked up and asked.

"When it's dark, some terrifying things move about in the darkness. Go out and you'll die."

Granny Si said solemnly: "The stone statues in the village protect us. The things in the dark don't dare enter the village."

"Do other villages have statues like these too?" Qin Mu asked curiously.

Granny Si nodded, but her expression was troubled. She kept looking out beyond the village and muttered softly: "The Cripple should be back by now... We really shouldn't have let the Cripple go out. That fellow only has one leg..."

"Granny, something strange happened today..."

Qin Mu hesitated, then told her about the woman who had crawled out of the cow's belly. Granny Si said casually: "You mean that woman? The Cripple already told me. He handled it well. As early as when you were weaned at four years old, I said we should sell the cow, but you couldn't bear to part with it, so we kept feeding it. See? Now something's happened, right? I told you—drinking milk until age four would make you attached to the cow."

Qin Mu blushed. Being weaned at four was indeed a bit too long, but that didn't seem to be the main point here, did it?

"Granny, that woman was killed by Grandpa Cripple..."

"Good riddance."

Granny Si laughed: "That was letting her off easy. She should have died eleven years ago. If it weren't for needing her milk for you, would she have lived until now?"

Qin Mu didn't understand.

Granny Si glanced at him and said: "This woman was the wife of the city lord of Xianglong City, a thousand li from here. The city lord is lustful, and she is jealous. The city lord liked to fool around outside, forcibly seizing innocent women. And every time the city lord defiled a woman's honor, this city lord's wife would send people to beat that woman to death. I infiltrated Xianglong City, originally planning to kill her, but I saw she had just given birth to a child—only three months old. Then I thought of you, who had no milk to drink, and she had milk. So I turned her into a milk cow and brought her back to nurse you. I just didn't expect this woman to break free of the seal and speak. She nearly harmed you."

Qin Mu was dumbfounded. He blurted out: "Granny, how can a person be turned into a cow?"

Granny Si grinned, showing half a mouthful of scattered teeth: "You want to learn? I'll teach you... The Cripple's back!"

Qin Mu looked over and saw the Cripple walking back with a limp, one hand holding a crutch, the other gripping a catch slung over his back. The darkness surged toward the village like a tide. Granny Si hurriedly shouted: "Damn cripple! Hurry! Hurry!"

"What's the rush?"

The Cripple walked toward the village at his unhurried pace. The moment he stepped into the village, the thick darkness just barely engulfed it. The catch on his back was a striped tiger—still alive. Its tail was struck by the darkness, and suddenly the tiger let out a mournful roar. Qin Mu quickly looked over and saw that the tiger's tail had been reduced to a string of bones. The fur, flesh, and blood on the tail were all gone, as if something had gnawed them clean off.

He curiously looked out at the darkness beyond the village. It was pitch black—nothing could be seen.

"What exactly is in the darkness?" He wondered to himself.